This date, 7 October, will forever be one of those days when we remember where and when we learnt of the horror – the day on which Israel’s dream, the dream of a safe homeland for all Jews across the world, was so brutally shattered.

They robbed us of the place where we ought to have been safest. Those who survived bear emotional scars. I believe there are some wounds that will never heal. These are the words of Racheli Nachmias, a young Israeli who was at the Supernova music festival in southern Israel a year ago. She survived Hamas’ terrorist attack.

Thinking back to 7 October last year, I recall how the news only gradually came through to us: the names of devastated kibbutzim – Kfar Aza, Nir Oz, Be’eri – and other sites that had fallen victim to barbaric acts. I recall how the full picture only gradually emerged: the inconceivable savagery with which people had been murdered in the most brutal way – indiscriminately, men, women, children. How even the dead bodies were defiled. Women and girls raped. People of all ages abducted, in the hands of the terrorists. The survivors left in uncertainty and fear, not knowing whether their relatives were still alive, or what was going to happen to them in captivity. In the end, almost 1200 people had been brutally killed, and 250 taken hostage.

Not since the Shoah had so many Jews been murdered on one single day. Today, exactly one year later, we join together to remember the victims of Hamas’ attack. We mourn with those who have lost their loved ones. We suffer with those who are still fearful for their relatives. We stand by their side.

Remembering 7 October last year, I am as shocked and horrified today as I was then. And I remember my conversation with President Herzog that same day. We have known each other for more than twenty years. I have never experienced my friend and colleague as shaken as he was then.

I also well remember how together, shortly after Hamas’ attack, we visited the region in southern Israel that had come under attack, including Kibbutz Be’eri, the site of a terrible massacre. Never will I forget the blood-smeared walls in the houses. Even less the desperation and the fear of death that kibbutzniks have told me about. The desperation and the fear of death that they felt when the terrorists were already murdering people next door, as they then moved on towards their door, their hiding place, the safe room in the building. For many, the safe room – of all places – became a death trap.

For a year now, the hostages have been in the hands of Hamas. Among them are German nationals. Germany is doing everything in its power to secure the release of all hostages, and we support the US President’s plan for that and for a ceasefire in Gaza. Let me say this very clearly: obtaining the release of the hostages must be the top priority. They must come home at long last!

By the same token, those who were displaced shortly after 7 October by Hezbollah’s daily missile barrages must also be able to return home. Tens of thousands fleeing this deadly threat have found a place somewhere in Israel. For a year now, they have not seen their homes, because the attacks by Hezbollah make life, even survival, impossible there. Attacks against which Israel is defending itself and must defend itself.

That day, 7 October, was a watershed moment, a profound trauma for Jews not only in Israel, but throughout the world. Israel was their safe haven. They knew, they felt: whatever happens, we can always go to Israel. And now? Nele Pollatschek has put this uncertainty into words: We still have the suitcases packed ready to go,” she writes, “but for the first time ever, we wouldn’t know where to go.

Honestly, I must tell you that as Federal President, I would never have imagined that Jews would say that, almost 80 years after the end of the Second World War, after the crime against humanity that was the Shoah. It pains me deeply!

We are gathered today to mourn, here in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. This church is an admonition. It reminds us of our German responsibility, of where German racial hatred and unbridled nationalism led, of what suffering and devastation we Germans brought to Europe last century. To this day, the more than 60 million dead of the Second World War and the crime against humanity that was the Shoah impose an obligation on us.

“Never again”: that means never again allowing inhuman racial hatred, antisemitism and excessive nationalism to take hold in Germany. This responsibility also includes standing by Israel’s side when Jews’ homeland is attacked and Israel’s security and existence are under threat. And “never again” also means standing up for human rights and for the dignity of every individual.

That is our threefold obligation. It is etched deep into our country’s national identity. It is part of the foundation of our democracy.

Nonetheless, we feel that these principles that guide us are confronted with a painful and also contradictory reality in the war in the Middle East. And all the more so, the longer the war goes on, the further it spreads, the more victims it claims.

This war has already killed too many people, caused too much suffering – for Israelis and for Palestinians, and now also for the people in Lebanon. The people in Gaza, too, have seen immeasurable suffering, every single day for a year. So many have lost their lives in this war; so many are having to flee, again and again. Disease is spreading. And people, especially children, are starving.

The questions are becoming louder, more pressing, as is the public debate – less about whether Israel has a right to defend itself, but rather about where the limits of the right to self-defence lie.

For us Germans, this painful, this contradictory reality cannot mean that we rid ourselves of the threefold obligation of “never again”. When principles and reality collide, it is a mandate to make the reality a different one, a better one. A reality in which Israelis and Palestinians can live peacefully alongside and with each other. That will not be achieved through military means alone. It requires a political perspective for the region. And we must and will do our part to that end.

I wish for an end to the dying in the Middle East, yes, but I would like to urge that in a desperate situation in the region one shouldn’t merely rely on the simple, simplistic pieces of counsel. Without the attack and the massacre of 7 October last year, there would not have been the dead in Gaza, the hunger, the destruction. That Israel would defend itself against a fundamental threat to its security was something Hamas certainly knew. It was a cynical calculation by the terrorists to draw Israel into a war in Gaza. A war in which civilians have been used as a shield for military positions and tens of thousands of innocent people have lost their lives.

Yes, I wish for an end to the dying in the Middle East, but I warn us Germans in particular against any heedless condemnation of Israel. The German-Israeli historian Dan Diner – someone who has been working for decades for reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians – recently pointed once again to the special situation of Israel, to the fact that fate has treated the Germans and Israelis differently since 1945. He said that the latter were living in a constant state of existential uncertainty, while the former could be certain of their existence – the existence of their state and of their people. Such certainty of existence was not granted to the Israeli Jews, he said. I do not regard this as shielding Israel from all criticism, nor do I regard it as a plea against endeavours to end the war. Rather, I understand it as a warning against European arrogance towards a country that – unlike us – lives in a neighbourhood where the extermination of the State of Israel is no mere phrase, but determines policy.

At this time, we are looking not only at the war zone. We are also looking at our own country. Since 7 October we have seen here in Germany, too, in schools and universities, in cultural institutions, on the streets and in the media, how this war in the Middle East threatens to tear us apart. Grief, anger, helplessness, fear for relatives and friends on both sides – many people in our country, too, are plagued by such feelings.

I understand the pain felt by many. Upset as we may be, however, we must not lose sight of the compass that guides our actions. Despite our inner turmoil, we must not accept the unacceptable. When Jewish homes are daubed with paint and defaced, when incendiary devices are thrown at synagogues, when Jewish students are threatened at their universities, when demonstrations call for a Middle East without Israel, then that is antisemitism, that is hatred of Jews. We must never, and will never, tolerate this!

Since 7 October, Jews, including in our country, have been living in a state of emergency, in a permanent feeling of threat, as it says in the situation report published today by the Central Council of Jews in Germany. We all need to play our part here: police and security authorities, the judiciary, but also society as a whole. We must do everything to protect Jewish life!

That is our abiding responsibility. That is the responsibility that remains! Only when Jews can live freely and safely in Germany will this country be completely at ease with itself.

Freedom and security for the people – that must be the goal in the Middle East, too. That must be the prospect in view. A prospect for which we work and for which we hope.

When we stop hoping, what we fear will surely come, said Ernst Bloch. I have a hope: the hope of Israel’s future. Am Yisrael Chai!

I have the hope that Israel will one day move beyond the trauma of 7 October. I have the hope that Israel will be strong and robust, so that something like 7 October can never happen again. I have the hope that Israel will again find harmony within and that the people will grow closer again. And I have the hope that Israel can and will live in peace with its neighbours.

We will never forget what happened on 7 October. We will never forget those who lost their lives that day. Our thoughts are with those who suffered and continue to suffer to this day. We owe it to them not to give up hope. Just as they themselves are not giving up hope.

“The fear sits so deep,” says Michal Ohana, who also survived the Supernova festival. “It is a profound, a primal fear. I think it will take a while. But at some point I will be myself again.”